


Playing with Fire

by potentiality_26



Series: Hotel Beds [1]
Category: Callan (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-04 18:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: “You must be exhausted,” he said, getting up.  Meres usually was when he made a rare self-deprecating class joke.  Callan didn’t want to contemplate what, beyond tiredness, it might signify.  The apocalypse.  Brain damage.The night after a long day.





	Playing with Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat inspired by the _Lewis_ episode "Music to Die For", which I watched recently.
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

Meres had put his shirt back on but he hadn’t buttoned it. 

Slightly damp white fabric clung to the curve of his neck and the line of his shoulders, and hung open over a hairless chest.  Patches of redness promised to bloom into interesting bruises across his skin.  He had his back fitted to the bathroom doorway and a glass of something- likely scotch- in his hand.  Couldn’t have been standard issue in a place like this.  Callan wondered where he got it.  In clear, well cut crystal the amber liquid gleamed, jarring when Callan half expected to see a cockroach skitter by any minute.  It was the same with Meres himself, in a way.  He got his hands as dirty as anyone- dirtier, often- but he was still always a little elegant, a little... separate.  Callan was glad of it, mostly.  That sense of _look, don’t touch_.  It was a good reminder.

Meres’ hair was damp too, darker than usual and tumbling over his forehead as he turned his face towards Callan.  “Did you get it?” he asked.

“I got it,” Callan replied.  He shut the door of their shared room behind him. 

"Well done, old boy.”

This verbal clap on the shoulder lacked energy.  Callan watched Meres’ head roll back into the doorframe, the not-quite-black of his hair in sharp contrast against the not-quite-white of the wood, as he claimed the bed nearest the door.  He sat gingerly, trying not to look at the bedspread too carefully.  He had slept in worse places, to be sure, but he didn't have to like it. 

There were some very fine hotels they could have stayed in.  Callan had seen a few out of the corner of his eye, down affluent streets back when Lonely sulkily dropped them off.  A day trip to a university town was hardly Lonely’s idea of a good time, but Callan hadn’t secured his promise not to do any extracurricular work, so he was probably making his own fun by now.  At any rate, on the rare occasion agents spent the night anywhere but a designated safehouse or their own homes, the section could be... cheap.  It was lucky the room rented for them was even a double. 

“You too,” Callan said.  Callan had done most- frankly _all_ \- of the heavy lifting.  One of the city’s academics- a hopeful defector- passed documents to his soviet contact under cover of the bare knuckle brawls sometimes held near the university.  Hunter didn't want either man interfered with, not yet, but he had wanted the latest file intercepted.  Callan had lifted it easily enough; Meres, there as backup, hadn't needed to do a thing.  Callan supposed he made his own fun as well, slipping in as a fighter at the last minute.  Callan hadn’t liked the idea originally- _playing with fire, isn't it?_ he had said.  He didn’t know what interest the local police had or didn't have- but he figured being on the edges of the fight was more than enough to attract unwanted notice.  But of course Meres would have his way- and, well... “The fights were better than I was expecting from mostly public schoolboys.”

“Ah, but what else are we to do with all this rage that the world isn’t giving us half of what it owes us?"

That startled a laugh out of Callan.  “You must be exhausted,” he said, getting up.  Meres usually was when he made a rare self-deprecating class joke.  Callan didn’t want to contemplate what, beyond tiredness, it might signify.  The apocalypse.  Brain damage.

He hadn’t taken a blow to the head that Callan saw, not that he'd really been able to watch.  Meres won, of course- that Callan _had_ been expecting.  Meres was a fighter, a killer.  Callan had very personal experience with that and knew it in more than just the professional sense too.  It was up under his skin, and it wasn’t the privileged upbringing- or, at least, Callan privately didn’t think so.  He wondered, sometimes, where all that rage did come from.  Were some people really just born like that?  Was Callan?

Meres took a mouthful of his drink, grimaced, and spat it in the sink.

“You’re a criminal,” Callan said, reaching him.  He took the glass out of Meres’ hand, glancing quickly in the sink.  No blood.  Meres huffed out an almost-silent laugh.  Callan sipped stolen scotch.  “Not bad,” he said.  But not as good as he was willing to bet Meres favored.

“The owner of this... fine establishment saw the fight and offered me a drink.”

“Private stock, eh?”

Meres shrugged, then looked as if he regretted it.

Callan had another swallow and leaned against the opposite side of the doorframe.  Meres smelled like sweat and smoke.  Callan liked it on him.  “There’s a sandwich in my coat, if you want it.”

Meres pulled a face, though whether it was at the sandwich or eating in general Callan didn’t know.

“Just as well.  I had half of it.”

That earned another almost-laugh.  Meres looked terribly stiff.  Callan put the glass aside and reached out, pushing the shirt over Meres’ shoulders to help him get it off.  The fabric of it was cool, but his fingers brushed over skin that was fever-hot.

“Thank you,” Meres said, like nothing much was happening.  Maybe nothing much was.  Meres barely had to move to finish the job.  He pulled on his cuff with one hand.  The shirt slipped right down and hung loosely on his wrist until he shook it off.  Callan had glanced over at him once, early on in the fight.  Meres took a couple of hits with a strange, lazy intensity that was like a cat letting a mouse run off for a while before pouncing on it again.  He looked a little like that now too.

Callan tugged on him gently.  “Come on,” he said.  “Lie down.”

Meres really was exhausted.  His head dropped briefly to Callan’s shoulder as he allowed himself to be maneuvered toward the bed.  What was Callan’s excuse for the way his hands lingered on Meres’ hips?  Indecision?  Probably best he kept the trousers on overnight.  It wasn’t warm in the room, not that Meres seemed to feel it.  Not that Callan could, this close to him.  Still, the chill would probably hit eventually and Callan wasn’t changing him into pajamas.  That really would be playing with fire.      

Callan gave him a little push.  Meres lay down and stretched out without protest.  He looked even more catlike that way.  He looked... like someone Callan would very much like to join.  See if he was really as tired as all that.  See if either of them was.  Instead, Callan finished that drink.  He picked Meres' shirt up and hung it in the closet, even though Meres already had a change of clothes in there.  Oh, he had it _bad_.  He would have to do something about it, and soon.  Not yet, though.  Not tonight.  “I’ll buy you breakfast in the morning,” he told Meres, who had his eyes already shut but surely hadn't drifted off yet.

“Hmm?  Will you indeed?”  Meres’ lips curled sleepily upward.

“Put money on you to win, didn’t I?”

That got a real laugh.  “Damned right,” he said- and slept, just like that.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [dreamwidth](https://potentiality-26.dreamwidth.org).


End file.
